Under the agreement Immtech will receive an initial license fee of $3 million and up to an additional $13 million if pafuramidine achieves European regulatory approval and pricing milestones. Immtech will receive significant royalties on sales and may also earn two additional milestone payments linked to the turnover generated. Furthermore, if BioAlliance elects to exercise the option to commercialize pafuramidine for malaria prophylaxis, it will start to share the clinical development costs for a Phase III trial which is due to start shortly.
Pafuramidine is currently in Phase III clinical trials in the US for the treatment of Pneumocystis Pneumonia in AIDS patients and human African trypanosomiasis. Pafuramidine has orphan designation in the US. BioAlliance has also negotiated the grant of an option to sell pafuramidine in Europe for the prevention and treatment of malaria in travelers.
Dominique Costantini, CEO of BioAlliance, said: “We are pursuing the European growth strategy presented at the time of our fund raising by private placement in July, with the acquisition of late-stage development products such as pafuramidine.”